Anger, frustration, humiliation. Call it what you will. That was what overpowered me after hours and hours of reading and rereading reports, accounts. How could I have been so careless? I had no one to blame but myself.

We didn't know who he was... or rather, it. It could have been a demon, a devil, a fairy. The people of Evansville had accepted it as part of their lives, and believed that they were safe from it, locked in the darkness of a jail cell. They often referred to it as "It".

Until last week.

I could still hear the guard's shrill scream, chilling me to the bone. He had supposedly gotten too close to it... and the thing had managed to touch him. Moments later a guard, laughing away, had run out of the Organisation, yelling about his freedom. We had tried to catch him, but it was too late. He was gone, and the repeated banging of the bars of the cell echoed through the small, concrete building, the panicked, gaunt face of our prisoner clearly visible. Or at least... what used to be our prisoner.

The exchange of mind and consciousness was a terrible ability, and an extremely dangerous one. That was the exact reason the Organisation had been created, to keep it in a prison to prevent it from causing harm. But now that it had escaped, It would definitely be seeking revenge on us.

I hated myself. I should never have hired that stupid, stupid guard. Rumours had spread about a certain secret society in the town that was willing to exchange bodies with it, for a handsome amount of money. It could be anyone: I couldn't even trust my own colleagues. If I didn't settle this soon, we were all in deep trouble. After all, I was the head of the Organisation.

Giving up for the time being, I sighed, stuffing my notebook back into my pocket.

As I left my office, I called out goodbye to the guard on duty, who was my friend Zach. He responded with a cheerful "Bye, Vivi!"

Just hearing him say that made me feel nervous. The problem was that It could have been inside his body, and it could be him pulling Zach's vocal cords, not Zach himself. I really couldn't trust anybody.

These thoughts haunted my mind as I made my way back home.

It was upon the dusty road that I stumbled upon the bush.

Soaked with red. The colour of blood.

I peeked behind it and I felt all the blood draining out of my face. I could hear every heartbeat in my chest.

The man was lying face-down, surrounded by glass shards. They seemed to be from a beer bottle.

Ba-bump.

I couldn't tell if he was dead or alive. I steeled myself and inched forward, placing one of the sharp pieces under his nose. I watched it carefully. Nothing happened.

Ba-bump.

Dead, then. The devil had stuck again. It looked like it had run off with his new body and betrayed the body's original owner, killing him.

Ba-bump.

I rolled the body over. It was the body of the idiotic guard who had caused all this nonsense. But the consciousness that had been killed was not his. It was the owner of the body It had run off with.

Ba-bump.

Now that he was dead, there was no telling whose body It was in control of now. I thought of all the large, strong men in Evansville. There were many. A chill ran down my spine as I thought of the demon in possession of any of them. I didn't care about distrusting anyone anymore. I fumbled for the cell phone in my pocket. "Zach? Zach, get down here right now. I need you to clear up the body."

I gave him the location of where I was.

...

The following day, the news was shouted from one end of the town to the other.

The Jones family was popular amongst the town members; they were polite, kind, and brought a smile to anyone in the room. They consisted of two loving parents, a teenage girl, a young boy and the Jones' little baby, who was loved by many.

Dead.

Every last one, dead.

They'd been found in their dining room with bruises all over their body. It seemed like the cause of death was a hard hit to the head.

Trying to choke back the tears welling up in my eyes, I stepped into the house, and called shakily, "Mum? I'm ready for our lunch together..."

My mother appeared in the doorway, her silver hair tied up in a messy bun and her eyes dark and solemn. Together, we made our way to the old building.

It was abandoned, but the rooftop was fully intact, about fifteen metres above the ground. There, one could have the best view of town: lush, green, filled with cheerfulness and the hustle and bustle of daily activities. However, it was now quiet and seemed almost dead.

Every year, we would come up here to remember the day my older sister died. She had been thirteen, and I was four at the time. Although I have no recollection of it, I was told that I grabbed her hand tightly and begged her to stay with me. She had died of an unknown illness, and our father, driven mad with grief, had taken to drinking. He was now probably in one of the bars across town, getting drunk with his friends. He didn't really care about us anymore.

The two of us climbed the ladder inside the building and emerged on the rooftop. Here, I brought out some food we had taken with us, and ate in silence.

"Viviana," my mother said abruptly, jolting me out of my thoughts. She was standing at the edge of the roof. I walked to her. I thought I saw a figure - was it Zach? - run across the road. Maybe It had possessed him.

"Come closer," she instructed, and I did. "We have enough money. Perhaps we could start a new life somewhere else. Move to the city. Leave your father here. He never cared for us anyway."

I stepped away in shock. Leave here? But where would we go?

She stretched out her arms imploringly, and after a moment's hesitation, I walked into embrace. "Oh, honey," she murmured, and that was the first indication that something was wrong. My mother never called me honey, sugar, pumpkin, or any of those names. Usually it was just Vi, Vivi, or Viviana.

And before I knew it, I was dangling over the roof, both hands clawing at the edge. Above me, she laughed. Only it wasn't my mother's laugh. It was the crazed cackle of a maniac.

The truth struck me so hard I almost fell. It had gotten hold of my mother.

I should have realised it sooner. My mother would never leave this place without my father. She loved him too much. She was a meticulously neat person, and wouldn't tie her hair so messily on an occasion like this.

Could she possibly have done it willingly? Why would she? Please, please no.

"Why would you do this?" I wanted to throw the words at It, make him feel as much pain as he had caused Evansville. But my voice was weak and tired, and my palms were starting to get sweaty.

"You don't know anything, do you?" the devil replied, its eyes seeming to burn holes in me. "When I was very young, I was thrown out of my home. Banished from the fiery pits of Hell when I was barely five. Why? I saw that an innocent man was being tortured in Hell, and I tried to save him. It was the worst decision of my life."

It paused, searching me for any reaction. I gritted my teeth. As he continued talking, I tried to hoist myself up, but to no avail.

"When demons enter the human world, they do not have their immortality. So when I first stepped onto this dimension, I had a human body, but they seemed to age and die so quickly. From young, I had been trained to inhabit human bodies, should there be a need to rise to the human world. I was happy for several centuries. Then I came here... and you caught me."

It's eyes seemed to bore into me. My right hand was slipping off.

"Imagine what it was like, locked in that dark, musty cell. Years pass, and your human body grows old and weak. Of course when I escaped, I had to find some way to continue living. In this world, the gems from Hell are worth far more than any other. I summoned some from the ground and that was where I got my money."

I managed to look up. The effort made beads of perspiration roll down my face. With a sudden shriek, my right hand fell off the edge. Now I was just holding on by one hand.

"What... about my mother?" If I was going to die, at least I had to find out.

"Well, I killed her," It said, sighing. "Couldn't have her running around and yelling about where I was. A kitchen knife in her chest, left her on the outskirts of town to rot."

My entire body trembled, and now sweat was not the only substance on my cheeks.

"So now..." the devil, the demon, the accursed thing I hated with all my being, with my beautiful mother's face, surveyed me. It sighed. "I guess I'll have to do the same to you."

Good. I didn't want to live anymore, anyway. Everyone I cared about was dead. Anyway... if I died, I would be reunited with my mother in heaven, wouldn't I? I imagined her warm smile, her soft eyes.

I didn't try to resist as It kicked my hand off the edge.